Black Desert Mobile Gameplay and Commentary (Part 1)

Black Desert Mobile is a mobile Fantasy MMO based on the popular Korean MMO Black Desert Online.  Published by Pearl Abyss, the game does not have cross-platform play but instead seeks provide the Black Desert Online experience tailored for mobile.  My First Impressions are available below, and my FAQ will be coming out soon.

An LG V30+ was used to play the game, which was adequate for average-level graphics.  However, a phone with similar processing specs to a Samsung Galaxy 8 is recommended for an optimal experience.

Disclaimer

I had no prior knowledge Black Desert Mobile's gameplay outside of the release and being mistaken for a youtuber with the same handle as me who made Black Desert Online content.  Additionally, due to my short time playing during early media access, I am unable to offer judgement on longer term features like grinding and true multiplayer content.

Starting off the game I'm greeted with a sign-in option.  Since this is a preview test, I decided against creating an actual account and opted for a guest account.

Next, I was faced with a family name screen.  It seemed kind of odd to me, and I wasn't completely sure what it was, but I decided to make my family name "Mymoney."  I expected to enter a first name for a character later, for which I'd write down, "Take."

After selecting a server (only one available), I arrived at the character creation screen.  The first order of business was choosing the classes. Aside from the standards like warrior and mage, there were a few other interesting options, like Valkyrie (a healer archetype).  Like selecting your first Pokemon, choosing a class was kind of difficult without cheat-like knowledge of the game meta.

Reading through the descriptions, I saw that the mage had fire magic.  Inspiration (and lack of better imagination) conjured the searing image of epic one-shot fireballs, eager to show the world the beauty of explosions like a small edgy girl with a pyroclasm fetish.  With a goal in mind, I chose the mage and went on to the rest of the character creation screen.

Wow.  The character creation is… complex.  At least at first. Although there were a few presets, I opted to go for a custom job.  One could easily spend a long time making their character just right.  Usually I go for the default designs, but with an inspired vision in mind I put to character creator to the test.

Although all customizable traits could pull from a wide variety of colors, the face alone had a staggering amount of options.  You could choose between a variety of eyebrows, eye pupils, and even eyelashes, along with a variety of sizing and positioning options.  Unfortunately, after the face, the rest of the customization didn't seem as extensive. There were a variety of hairstyles, but some seemed rather samey.  The overall styles were more fantasy than anime, which hurt my accuracy but still made sense. Interestingly, there were curl sliders, but they were based on some kind of texture blur, which could result in a really weird, frizzy, immersion breaking texture if you slid it all the way to 0 or 100.

Then customization features fell off even more.  You could change the height and size of the character, tapping and dragging certain portions to make them thicker or thinner, like if you really liked thighs or wanted to make a stout, dwarf-like forearms. 

The most disappointing part were the outfits available at the start. Instead of selecting different parts of an outfit, players select between a variety of presets. Ouch. Later on I learned that cosmetics are available for further customization, although honestly the default mage outfit doesn't look bad.  I finished character creation, and now it's time to actually start playing.

Starting the game treats players to a cinematic, following a black mist as it flies through deserts and villages.  And then you wake up on a beach.

The black mist can talk!  And it's called the "Black Spirit." And my naming scheme failed…  NPC's and others call you by your family name, or more often they refer to you in the second person.  And when they do say my name, I failed to capture the screen capture on this phone sucks.  I tried restarting the game to restart the tutorial, but no luck - the autosave is too good. But wait, I noticed something fishy. 

I walk around tapping and completing a few tutorial basics.  Except I end up tapping on a quest and it automatically ran the path for me. Interesting.  It seems like autopathing is turned on by default. It can be interrupted by manually moving.

According to the first and second people I talk to, I've lost my memory.  The perfect setting for someone who has never played before. And of course, the first thing I'm expected to do is some kind of volunteer service as expected of adventurers.

My first mission is to work on a farm, which seems pretty cool-- Oh wait, it's to kill parasitic bees.  Bees?

My black mist buddy tells me to not be rash and fight the bees.  I don't stand a chance as I am. Granted I just woke up on a beach with no memory, so I'm surprised at everyone else's nonchalance.

We start combat mode, and it's pretty intuitive.  Targeting is relatively auto as long as you're facing the right direction, but due to my inexperience sometimes I'll accidentally knock back something and auto-target a different enemy, resulting in a swarm of half dead angry woodland animals.  As far as combat goes, there's a basic attack and ranged spells that cost mana and cooldowns. As you can imagine, I showed the parasitic bees the power of EXPLOSIONS. Except I couldn't one shot them, so I snuck in some cheeky staff bonks. The bees sounded kind of like cows and looked like plants.  Even the quest lady said it's hard to tell them apart from potatoes. Sneaky bees.  

After completing the first mission, I tried whacking some chickens ala Legend of Zelda, but it seems like you can't interact with them.  They live another day. Unlike enemies, there are some critters who seem to be just aesthetic roadside decorations.

Without much fanfare, my next assignment is to hunt foxes.  I don't recall getting any prompts about it outside of the message, but the mob genocide must go on.  Some monsters don't seem to aggro you until you attack them. See how I'm surrounded by these fluffy critters? And thank god they don't aggro, else I'd be dead from trying to take a screenshot with this finicky phone.  Did I mention how much I hate this phone's screenshot feature? After some regretful firey furballs later, I finish the next quest too, beating boars.  One combat note is that so far these passive wild mobs seem to aggro on an individual basis - there's no group aggro, even if I hit one mob in a crowd.  The Witch's AoE attacks do aggro multiple enemies they hit at once, though.

It isn't mentioned often in the tutorial so far, but there are other fun things to do, like foraging for wild herbs.  I'm not sure what they do, but I'm hoarding it anyway.

When I try to explore the menu, it is full of icons for a wide variety of functions, some which don't seem relevant yet.  It's easy to be overwhelmed as a new player, so I'd recommend ignoring them until they're brought up in the tutorial. Still, for players familiar with Runescape or other MMO's, I imagine they would feel at home.  

A few other features I noticed include the map and quest flag on the top left corner.  I've been relying on auto-path, but now I can see where I need to go as well.

The next tutorial part is equipping skills.  Here we can see the various skill info and stats.  Like any self respecting mage, I scroll down the list to look for some kind of improvement over fireball.  Andddd I don't quite find it. I guess there's Meteor Shower, but I need to be level 55. Right now I'm a paltry level 3.  Can I learn it before the end of the preview?

My next mandatory activity is to feed animals.  Sweet, we get pets. Chomusuke here I come. Keeping in character, I choose the cat.  Wait what. Somehow, I clicked the dog instead. I could've sworn I made sure to target the cat…

After forcing me to use a random name for my dog, in which I struggle to find the menu to change my dog's name from Luke,  I'm told that like most pets will need to be fed as is standard in most MMO's. Although we get some pet food, I feel mild fear at the responsibility and future debt hoisted onto me.  Pets appear to be Pearl Shop items, which are the premium shop of the game. For actual money, I can unlock even more customization items, like dyes. Perhaps they have a crimson dye.  Weight is another feature in this game, which limits the amount of items a player can carry. For Pearls, they can also gain the magical ability to hold more weight.

Like most games, there are achievements.  These provide all kinds of rewards, like Black Stones (which can upgrade armor.)  Another notification tells me I can praise ranks now. This means I can see how I stack up against the players of the world.  Life skills. I wonder if I'd be better at this in-game?

Speaking of which, I'm called away to my next quest.  Boars are trampling the crops (and hopefully the bees).  I'm given a skillbook as a reward for a job I haven't done yet, but I'm not complaining.  The tutorial has me use it to upgrade my hp. Interesting choice. According to my Spirit buddy, this will allow me to fight monsters better.  I mean, he's not wrong…

Then I begin the mission to protect the farm from a boar invasion.  Let the usual slaughter begin… Just right for rookie missions, the fight isn't too bad and I even get some NPC helpers.  Of course, I leave them to fend off the boars so I don't die while trying to take a picture for the 'gram. The fight ends with a violent boar, a big bad monster with an equally big hp bar. One of the things I've felt when playing is that as a mage with ranged attacks sometimes it's hard to see the enemies on screen when you're fighting.  The field of view can't be zoomed out much more than the default settings, but maybe it's just a part of the game players learn to deal with. In the words of many a veteran player, "Git Gud."

Just as I try to look at the map I finally see the pet screen, kind of.  It somehow replaced the map. I rename my dog Chomusuke, and then try to tap the buttons to find the map.  I find login bonuses based on playtime, World Boss Status Report (not that anyone can take them on yet, I think), a convenient fast-travel/save town button, and outlaw mode (which increases exp and field drops at the risk of being hunted by other players?)  The magnifying glass and scroll icon shows a convenient area summary detailing the enemies, potential loot, and quests. I finally realize I can open the map by pressing the blue bar on the top left. What a revelation.

Animal Farm(ing)

If there's anything I learned so far in this game, it's that the starting quest progression has players making more animals disappear than a certain Orwellian novel.  Nothing is free from the arbitrary quotas to fulfill, such is the endless cycle of digital mob life and death. Mobs spawn, die, and then are replaced by new spawns. Wolves were the next victim.  Although I imagine there's no ecological impact in the game, wild mobs do drop loot, so there are definitely economical impacts.  Loot still needs to be manually picked up, though.

And that's it for Part 1!  Click the button below for Part 2!